So here I have another experiment in “write about the episode when you are done instead of keeping meticulous notes as you watch” recapping.
The Enterprise is headed to a planet called Haven for no real reason, except that it’s apparently a bitchin’ place to take some R & R. Picard takes a swing with the Foreshadowing Sledgehammer and lets us know that Haven is rumored to have healing powers, both emotional and physical, and is incredibly peaceful. Data makes sure to bring us back to earth by noting that there isn’t a lick of proof. Thanks Data, Official Starfleet Killjoy.
Meanwhile, Riker is in his quarters watching a hologram of two young ladies in spangly togas playing the harp. What. Seriously, why can’t people in the future like music that isn’t unapproachably futuristic or classical? I mean, that almost made Tom Paris a satisfying character in Voyager, because he had a liking for 20th century kitsch. I digress. He’s called away because something is waiting to be beamed up from Haven.
It’s a box! A big silver box with a face cast in the side, and I suppose I could claim that it is charmingly retro that on the close shots, it was someone’s face painted silver so it could make a stilted announcement, but I actually think it would be cooler as CGI. It distracts me that the eyes and mouth are normal colored when it is supposedly something made entirely out of metal. Anyway, it makes it’s little speech about, uhhhh, time and Lwaxana Troi and the Millers and Deanna Troi as soon as Troi enters the room, and then it just basically vomits a whole bunch of jewels taken from the prop room of a bad pirate film onto the floor of the transporter room.
The jewels, Troi explains nervously, are a wedding present. Her wedding present. Ohhhhh shiiiiiiiiiiiit, says Riker’s expression. Troi, it turns out, was betrothed as a child to Wyatt Miller and hey, he and his parents are ready to beam up. And even though Troi and Riker are, like, totally broken up, he’s still all butthurt about it and will be petulant throughout the whole episode.
I missed some of the meeting between the Millers and Troi because my computer’s DVD player is a delicate princess when it comes to scratched discs and my roommate was using our real TV. I will say that Mrs. Miller’s poncho-y coat thing is one of the few costumes I’ve seen in the show that I rather like, even if her hat is atrocious. Wyatt gives Troi a Mood Rose, and then disc error disc error HERE COMES LWAXANA TROI.
I can’t decide if I think Lwaxana is horrible or fantastic. God knows I wouldn’t want her for my mother, and she is pretty brassy and rude, but she is such a magnificent breath of life into this show that I can’t be unhappy about her presence. It’s so fitting that she constantly wears red. She’s terribly rude to Picard, which he takes with good grace, and just steamrolls everyone else. She pokes and prods everyone apparently just to stir shit up. You almost wonder how she produced such a drab and useless child as Deanna Troi.
Somewhere in here the subplot shows up, which is a mysterious ship headed to Haven, which, like Alderaan before it, has no weapons. They demand protection from the Enterprise, which makes me wonder what they would have done if it WEREN’T the Enterprise’s vacation week. I know you have principles, but jeez, keep a civilian space navy or something. I mean, if you’re going to shrill that a ship failing to respond is an act of hostility, be prepared to deal. It turns out to be the last survivors of Planet Typhoid Mary, and with some patented STAR TREK MORALIZING ™, they note that it’s the result of bioweaponry, and all you need to fuck up your civilization that way is 20th century technology and a 20th century intellect, which is implied to be some serious fucking idiocy. Thanks, Star Trek! I sure see the light about the evils of bioweaponry now! [themoreyouknow.gif]
Anyway, these ships from these planets have been landing for decades, and then the refugees infect the planet they land on, and everyone dies. Super. They lock the ship with a transporter TRACTOR beam after the leader of Haven has some further hysterics at them and demands that they be fired upon.
But back to the happy couple. Wyatt is clearly disappointed that Troi isn’t the woman he’s been having dreams about all his life and carries sketches of in a big plexiglass folding frame. He can’t even hide that from the audience, and his wife-to-be is a fucking empath (but a useless one, judging by the episodes so far), so he’s pretty well screwed. He talks about how his biggest ambition is to cure illness. Picard must have loaned him the Foreshadowing Hammer.
There’s some wacky comedy where Lwaxana goes around declaring that they’ll be having a traditional Betazoid ceremony, where everyone is woooo naked to symbolize… something. The love of the couple or something. Naked = comedy, that’s the key, here. Especially Wyatt’s fat father naked, and Lwaxana, shit-stirrer supreme, noting that he’s pretty eager to see her naked, too, to the horror of Wyatt’s mother. Troi snaps in the most unnatural-feeling way (it’s just out of nowhere, no build up, just a slight pause, she stands up, “STOP BICKERING!”, flounces out, and Data, my new hero, implores everyone to keep bickering because it’s fascinating) and then has an awkward and unsatisfying heart to heart with Riker, which Wyatt interrupts.
Just as the wedding seems inevitable, they finally get in contact with the ship, and, gaaaaaaaaaasp, the girl of Wyatt’s dreams (literally) is standing there in the middle of the viewscreen. And she’s terminally ill! It’s like a fairy tale! He beams over, because it’s totally fate, you guys, and there’s no coming back because of this super-plague that apparently DESTROYS ENTIRE CIVILIZATIONS but damn if these eight survivors don’t look perfectly healthy, if scantily clad. I mean, I guess running sores or something would kind of kill the romance of it all, but come on.
Wyatt’s parents and Lwaxana leave, the latter throwing some comments to Picard about his apparently thinly concealed lust for her, which seriously pisses him off, and she’s gone. Ahh, Majel. Certainly different than Nurse Chapel, who tended toward the passive, and a welcome breath of vibrance into this season. Oh, and lest I forget, there has also been this Lurch-like valet (who has apparently been borrowing Data’s makeup) silently following Lwaxana around and guzzling down booze at parties. Here, as they leave, he offers a little parting shot and thanks them for the drinks. WAAAAHHHH-WHAAAAaaaaaaaa.
Deanna Troi suffers from what I think of as Fanny Price syndrome in this episode. Things pretty much just happen to her, and she just lets it happen. It’s almost anti-feminist. “Well, I’m a bridge officer on a Federation ship, but I guess I’ll leave all that behind because my mom says it’s time for me to marry this guy that was picked for me as a child.” She has no agency over her own life and apparently no feelings about the whole thing, and it makes me pretty angry, actually. I mean, Jesus! It’s your life! Your career! Have something, anything, invested in it! Don’t just get watery-eyed and let other people make your decisions for you! Auuugggghhhhh. Are all the female characters in this show going to be hateful? Well, everyone’s hair was nice in this one, at least. And Crusher looked really pretty.
Sigh.